scholarly journals Could Cambridge Analytica Have Delivered Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Victory? An Anthropologist’s Look at Big Data and Political Campaigning

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Vito Laterza
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Political Campaigning ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World

Abstract I first provide some context about Cambridge Analytica’s (ca) activities, linking them to ca parent company, scl Group, which specialised in “public relations” campaigns around the world across multiple sectors (from politics to defence and development), with the explicit aim of behavioural change. I then analyse in more detail the claims made by mathematician and machine learning scholar David Sumpter, who dismisses the possibility that ca might have successfully deployed internet psychographics (e.g. online personality profiling) in the winning 2016 Trump presidential campaign in the US. I critique his arguments, pointing at the need to focus on the bigger picture and on the totality of ca methods, rather than analysing psychographics in isolation. This is followed by a section where I use ca whistleblower Christopher Wylie’s 2019 memoir to show the important role that in-depth qualitative research and methods akin ethnographic immersion might have played in building ca big data capabilities. I provide an angle on big data that sees it as complementary, rather than in opposition to, human insight that comes from qualitative immersion in the social realities targeted by ca. The concluding section discusses additional questions that should be explored to gain a deeper understanding of how big data is changing political campaigning, with an emphasis on the important contribution that anthropology can make to these crucial debates.

scholarly journals Strings Attached

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (05) ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
Tim Sprinkle
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Growth Potential ◽  
American Business ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Government ◽  
International Investors ◽  
Different Parts

This article discusses reasons for various American startup companies to shift abroad for funding and production, and their impact on the American business scenarios. Founders are accepting funding from overseas investors, setting up supply chains in different parts of the world, servicing customers internationally, and even selling their businesses to foreign government-backed funds. Although the idea of losing American inventions and technologies to international investors and buyers is not generally good for public relations, the current landscape of global startup development has winners on both sides, and overseas involvement in US companies does not necessarily mean a net loss domestically. The US government must find a way to move the US economy forward, preventing predatory pricing and mercantilist practices by exporters while at the same time reaping the international flow of ideas and funds that power innovation. The experts believe that ignoring the rest of the world would not only limit the growth potential of US startups, but over time would reduce America’s global leadership in innovation.

scholarly journals Politics and the Craft of War in Sam Shepard’s States of Shock

لارك ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (20) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Sanaa Lazim Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Controversial Subject ◽  
Sam Shepard ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

Sam Shepard is one of the controversial modern American playwrights who wrote about issues that are concerned with the individual in America rather than the institution In his theatre, the audience expects to see everything that concerns itself with the western culture and ignores that which is global. He is very much interested in the inner landscape of America rather than its position as the leader of the world. Thus, in his drama he preaches such ideology urging the US Administration to focus the attention on the American welfare. The research attempts an analysis on his play The States of Shock using the New Historicism approach through studying the writer’s point of view concerning the craft of war. Modern politics has been very influential on both the social as well as the literary scene. Wars, whether launched or were only loomed at, has been considered the most controversial subject about which plays, poems, and books were written. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, writers

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-102
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wiggins
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
United States ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Big Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Blaise Pascal ◽  
Division Problem ◽  
The World

Can risk assessment be made fair? The conclusion of Calculating Race returns to actuarial science’s foundations in probability. The roots of probability rest in a pair of problems posed to Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat in the summer of 1654: “the Dice Problem” and “the Division Problem.” From their very foundation, the mathematics of probability offered the potential not only to be used to gain an advantage (as in the case of the Dice Problem), but also to divide material fairly (as in the case of the Division Problem). As the United States and the world enter an age driven by Big Data, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and machine learning and characterized by an actuarialization of everything, we must remember that risk assessment need not be put to use for individual, corporate, or government advantage but, rather, that it has always been capable of guiding how to distribute risk equitably instead.

How Should Data Science Education Be?

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Necmi Gürsakal ◽  
Ecem Ozkan ◽  
Fırat Melih Yılmaz ◽  
Deniz Oktay
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Science Education ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
Time Data ◽  
High Demand ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The interest in data science is increasing in recent years. Data science, including mathematics, statistics, big data, machine learning, and deep learning, can be considered as the intersection of statistics, mathematics and computer science. Although the debate continues about the core area of data science, the subject is a huge hit. Universities have a high demand for data science. They are trying to live up to this demand by opening postgraduate and doctoral programs. Since the subject is a new field, there are significant differences between the programs given by universities in data science. Besides, since the subject is close to statistics, most of the time, data science programs are opened in the statistics departments, and this also causes differences between the programs. In this article, we will summarize the data science education developments in the world and in Turkey specifically and how data science education should be at the graduate level.

scholarly journals THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF PHENOMENOLOGY AS A RESEARCH METHOD

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (09) ◽  
pp. 474-477
Author(s):  
Ian Mc Coog, Ed.D.
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Qualitative Research Method ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Clark Moustakas

In the philosophical tradition, phenomenology is a means by which random, raw phenomena are categorized into what can be called human experience. Phenomenology is a school of thought within ontology which focuses on the nature of existence. Edmund Husserls view of phenomenology proposed that to understand the world, one should examine the lens through which he/she experiences the world as opposed to attempting to examine the world itself. The application of this idea first expanded to the discipline of psychology by researchers such as Amedeo Giorgi and Clark Moustakas and more recently has been more widely applied to the social sciences as a whole.Possessing an understanding of the philosophy and psychology traditions behind phenomenology greatly increases a researchers ability to implement it as a qualitative research method.

scholarly journals SOME FEATURES OF MUSLIM LAW: NEW TRENDS IN ITS DEVELOPMENT

THE BULLETIN ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 389 (1) ◽  
pp. 278-283
Author(s):  
N.L. Seitakhmetova
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

The essence of the integration process in Muslim law has expressed in the enlargement and consolidation of the social relations through the definite points, objects of the concentration of the tension and gradual incorporation of the human being into the community with the system of the relations, with the global order, based on the balance of the regulating influence of the legal systems of the different states and synchronic of the regulating behavior in the different societies. The movable force of the process of the integration is inside the system of the society and social relations in the world scale. Muslim law is an Islamic doctrine about the rules of behavior of the Muslims. The main content of Muslim law is the rules of behavior of believers, that follow from the Sharia and sanctions for non-compliance with these regulations. It was formed in the VII-X centuries in the connection with the formation of the Muslim state - Caliphate. The formation of Muslim law was caused, on the one hand, by the need to bring the actual law in line with the religious norms of Islam, on the other hand, by the need to regulate public relations on the principles, based on the religious and ethical teachings of Islam.

scholarly journals Playing with data and its consequences

First Monday ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miren Gutiérrez ◽  
Stefania Milan
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Critical Data ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

The fundamental paradigm shift brought about by datafication alters how people participate as citizens on a daily basis. “Big data” has come to constitute a new terrain of engagement, which brings organized collective action, communicative practices and data infrastructure into a fruitful dialogue. While scholarship is progressively acknowledging the emergence of bottom-up data practices, to date no research has explored the influence of these practices on the activists themselves. Leveraging the disciplines of critical data and social movement studies, this paper explores “proactive data activism”, using, producing and/or appropriating data for social change, and examines its biographical, political, tactical and epistemological consequences. Approaching engagement with data as practice, this study focuses on the social contexts in which data are produced, consumed and circulated, and analyzes how tactics, skills and emotions of individuals evolve in interplay with data. Through content and co-occurrence analysis of semi-structured practitioner interviews (N=20), the article shows how the employment of data and data infrastructure in activism fundamentally transforms the way activists go about changing the world.

scholarly journals Digital conversations about depression among Hispanics and non-Hispanics in the US: A big‐data, machine learning analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruby Castilla-Puentes ◽  
Anjali Dagar ◽  
Dinorah Villanueva ◽  
Laura Jimenez-Parrado ◽  
Liliana. Gil Valleta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Source Analysis ◽  
Clinical Settings ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
The Us ◽  
Negative Tone ◽  
Online Conversation ◽  
Learning Analysis

Abstract Background Digital conversations can offer unique information into the attitudes of Hispanics with depression outside of formal clinical settings and help generate useful information for medical treatment planning. Our study aimed to explore the big data from open-source digital conversations among Hispanics with regard to depression, specifically attitudes toward depression comparing Hispanics and non-Hispanics using machine learning technology. Methods Advanced machine‐learning empowered methodology was used to mine and structure open‐source digital conversations of self‐identifying Hispanics and non-Hispanics who endorsed suffering from depression and engaged in conversation about their tone, topics, and attitude towards depression. The search was limited to 12 months originating from US internet protocol (IP) addresses. Results A total of 441, 000 unique conversations about depression, including 43,000 (9.8%) for Hispanics, were posted. Source analysis revealed that 48% of conversations originated from topical sites compared to 16% on social media. Several critical differences were noted between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. In a higher percentage of Hispanics, their conversations portray “negative tone” due to depression (66% vs 39% non-Hispanics), show a resigned/hopeless attitude (44% vs. 30%) and were about ‘living with’ depression (44% vs. 25%). There were important differences in the author's determined sentiments behind the conversations among Hispanics and non-Hispanics. Conclusion In this first of its kind big data analysis of nearly a half-million digital conversations about depression using machine learning we found that Hispanics engage in an online conversation about negative, resigned, and hopeless attitude towards depression more often than non-Hispanic.

scholarly journals Big Data Applications in Vaccinology

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Joseph E. Kasten
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Big Data Applications ◽  
The World ◽  
Big Data Technologies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Structured Literature Review ◽  
Over Time

The development of vaccines has been one of the most important medical and pharmacological breakthroughs in the history of the world. Besides saving untold lives, they have enabled the human race to live and thrive in conditions thought far too dangerous only a few centuries ago. In recent times, the development of the COVID-19 vaccine has captured the world’s attention as the primary tool to defeat the current pandemic. The tools used to develop these vaccines have changed dramatically over time, with the use of big data technologies becoming standard in many instances. This study performs a structured literature review centered on the development, distribution, and evaluation of vaccines and the role played by big data tools such as data analytics, datamining, and machine learning. Through this review, the paper identifies where these technologies have made important contributions and in what areas further research is likely to be useful.

From Fire Escapes to Qualitative Data: Pedagogical Urging, Embodied Research, and Narrative Medicine’s Ear of the Heart

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edgar Rivera Colón
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Narrative Medicine ◽  
Qualitative Research Methods ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Observation ◽  
Embodied Research

The author begins with a lyrical and evocative description of a cilantro-green fire escape from which he observed the neighborhood of his childhood, explaining that the work of the ethnographer is rooted in experiences of observation and experience. Drawing upon these tools of social interaction, training in qualitative research methods can help students to discover and reframe their already practiced skills in the social observation and interpretation with which they, and all of us, traverse the world. The embodied and reflexive nature of this practice is emphasized, with attention to the observer’s own social positionality and identity. Citing William Stringfellow’s proposal that “listening…is a primitive act of love,” the author proposes that qualitative research and narrative medicine both offer frameworks for such listening, with implications of political and social liberation.

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